Star Wars: Stormtrooper: Angel
by leifjohnson14
Summary: XV-4392 is an imperial stormtrooper, and he is dying. He was sent to a world of mist by Lord Vader to hunt and kill a rogue Jedi who has evaded capture and surrounded herself with Rebels. This is set some time before the film "A New Hope".
1. 1: Stormtrooper

He faltered, and he fell.

Kneeling on the ground, in the dirt, as rounds whizzed past him, he struggled to breath. Everything that he ever knew; all the training, all of the lies shoved into the back of his mind to make him into the faceless soldier that he was today, it was all worthless now. Now, that he was going to die.

This wasn't even the life that he had chosen for himself. It was the life that he was given.

A number. That's all he had ever been, all this time, just a number.

Now, he was nothing.

He looked up. His blaster was gone, lost to the battleground that consumed him. Blood was pouring out of his white armor, and he struggled to staunch the flow with a hand held over the wound. It still burned, the laser round that hit him smoked, and he coughed inside of his helm. The tactical feed before his eyes was tinged red as liquids spilled out onto them.

He would be dead soon. He looked at his vital signs and cringed. There would be no coming back from this. When his eyes closed, they would not open again.

If he was going to die, he thought to himself, then he was going to die doing the only thing that he had ever known. Fighting.

He stood.

His legs shook, and every instinct in him wanted nothing more than to lie down, to let death come, and to surrender. But he wouldn't.

He was a stormtrooper.

He didn't know if he believed in the ways of the Empire. He didn't know if he would truly follow Lord Vader to the very end, but that didn't mater. The sith wasn't upon this field, and it wasn't for Vader that he was dying for.

It was himself.

He reached up one hand, the thought passing through his mind to remove his helm and breath in fresh air in his final moments, but he stopped himself. The face of a stormtrooper wasn't a middle aged man with black hair, stubble, and scars jotted across his face. It was the white mask that he had donned now. That was what struck fear into the galaxy, and let its citizens know that he was a soldier, and that he would fight.

He left it on.

Ahead, he saw more through the mist that surrounded him. They were Rebels, clad in green and tan uniforms that looked hastily put together. He reached down to his side and pulled out his blaster pistol. It looked like a piece of junk, honestly, and was barely any bigger than his hand, but it was all he had, and he would use it.

He raised his side arm, and he fired.

Red illuminated the world around him, and a laser blast ignited from his weapon. It soared into a figure ahead of him, and the Rebel crumpled, crying out in pain as he dropped his rifle and clutched his stomach. The hit was charred black, and smoke rose from it, but before long blood would be pooling around the body, falling from the Rebel just as freshly as it fell from him now.

He started to run forwards, pistol raised before him, and several other stormtroopers fell in alongside him. They made no attempt to speak to him, to ask if he was alright or to offer any kind words. They simply moved and fought in silence with no regard for the other.

One carried a banner in both hands, the standard blood red with the black insignia of the Empire upon it. The others all clutched standard issue E-11 blasters in two hands, black holsters slapping against their thigh plates as they ran. They shot off rounds into the mist around them as they moved, and screaming resounded.

He didn't know where they were going, or why they were here. He couldn't remember. The pain that ran through him, the life that he held onto with shaking hands was robbed of patches of his memory, not that it mattered.

Of course, it wouldn't matter.

He didn't even have a real name, after all. Only an identification so that he could be addressed by commanders.

He was nothing to the vast galaxy around him. He was nothing to the Empire that he so willingly fought for, and he was nothing on this battlefield. Just a wounded soldier holding onto his side arm.

He spotted another Rebel, and instinctively brought his pistol level with the figure, and fired without hesitation. The woman he'd shot cried in pain and flung her arms back, jolting in shock, and the rifle she had held flew away into the grey air around her. She fell back to the ground with a black smoking hole in her throat.

As the ran, the stormtroopers, one of them was suddenly taken off of his feet. He was lifted up into the air, and shot back to where the group had come from. They all halted, and formed a circle around the banner bearer. They scanned the mists for what might be assaulting them, and that's when he recalled what it was that they were doing here.

They had come for a Jedi outcast who lived upon this world. One that had survived the Clone Wars.

He heard the buzz of a lightsaber being ignited, and from within the cloak of the mist, saw two blades of pure white light extend outwards. Then, they were gone.

A trooper next to him cried out, and fell to the ground. In moments, she was among them. The trooper that had been struck hit the dirt ground, his head falling from his shoulders, and his blaster slipping from his dead grip.

As the Jedi moved in among them, he brought around his side arm, ready to fire, but when he saw her he didn't want to fire. He didn't want to kill her. She looked like an angel.

It was a Twi'lek, and not like one he'd ever seen before. Her skin was as white as the lightsaber staff that she held, two blades extending from either end of it. Black stripes ran down the twin tails on the back of her head, and she wore crystal blue robes wrapped tightly around her.

She twirled the staff in her hands, and another trooper was struck. His arms were severed from the rest of him, and he stumbled backwards. She turned, swinging the saber above her head and then brought it down, stabbing down into the chest of another trooper.

He was shaking, he realized. Shaking, and afraid. He was not familiar with the emotion. While looking at the Jedi, however, he couldn't help also feeling enticed.

He stood with the pistol pointed at her, but he didn't fire. Blood still fell from him, dripping down from the wound burned into his stomach. His free hand had fallen to his side, no longer attempting to keep back the flow of red. He couldn't feel it anymore, the wound that marked him as a dead man, and he didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.

He didn't care.

The Jedi looked at him, sparkling blue eyes considering him for the slightest of moments before she turned to the other stormtroopers. The Twi'lek deflected a laser blast with one end of her saber staff, while she used the other blade to skewer a trooper in front of her. She pulled it back out of the imperial's chest, and he fell to his knees, looking down at his wounds. The Twi'lek spun the staff, felling the last trooper behind her.

The only two left wearing the white of the Empire where himself, and the banner bearer.

The banner bearer swung the standard as though the pole were a spear, trying vainly to disarm the Jedi. She sliced through the pole, and as the red flag fell, fluttering in the wind, the soldier screamed out as one of his arms fell with it. Regardless of the wound, he still raised in his other hand an E-11 he had retrieved from one of his fallen comrades. He brought it about to fire.

He never got the chance.

The banner bearer fell to the ground, head leaving shoulders and steam rising from the open cut, and then it was just him and her. She already had her back to the trooper she had killed, and looked at him holding her saber ready, but she didn't cut into him as he had expected. Instead, the two blades of the lightsaber retracted into themselves, the constant burr fading away.

He still had the pistol half raised, and she smiled kindly at him.

"What is wrong?"

He didn't know what to say. He didn't know whether she actually cared or not. His commanding officers had never cared what was wrong with him. They never asked how he felt, what he thought, or what concerned him.

It didn't matter. Not then, and not now.

"Nothing," he said, his voice weak and the words struggling to escape his dying throat. "Only following orders."

"You're going to die," she said, extending a hand out, worry in her eyes. "I can help..." But at her movement, he raised his blaster higher, bringing it level with her face.

"Not any closer, witch," he began, but didn't finish. He just then took in the features of her face. She was stunningly beautiful, her features elegant as though they were out of a painting. The Twi'leks were always considered stunning in appearance, but this Jedi was more than that. She was the most amazing thing that he had ever seen. As he struggled to form any other words, she giggled to herself.

"Lower your weapon," she said, and it sounded like it was a command. "I can't help you if you won't lower it."

"You don't give me orders," he spat, angered. "I am going to shoot if you get any closer. You can't stop it."

She cocked her head as though confused, and then waved her hand in front of his face.

"You will lower the blaster."

He felt a wave pass throughout his mind, and for just a split moment, he wanted to obey. He wanted to follow her order as though it wasn't an order at all, but instead as though it were his own thought, his own want and desire. For a moment, he felt like it was his own intention, but then the feeling passed.

"No," he said sternly, and he saw that the Jedi knew he wouldn't change his mind or be persuaded.

"You are very strong. Your mind isn't weak like so many of your kind. You aren't just another faceless soldier of the Empire. You are strong."

The Jedi spoke, each word sounding like a song in his ears, and he felt his face reddening without his meaning to. He didn't know what to think of a comment such as that. Never before had he ever heard something of that nature being said about himself. There was no answer in his head to serve as a way of reaction.

As he held the blaster, he fell to his knees, the strength in his legs fading away into nothing. He could feel the fingers holding the gun weaken slowly, and knew that soon they too would give out.

"What is your name?" The Jedi asked.

"Nothing," he muttered underneath a struggling breath. "It doesn't matter."

She bent down to look at him more closely, even though she couldn't possibly see his features through the helmet that he still wore.

"There is face underneath that, and it has a name. What is it?"

"Why...?" He barely managed to ask.

"Because I care," she replied simply, and he believed her.

"XV-4392. That's my name."

The expression on her face became thoughtful for a moment, before she smiled reassuringly.

"Xavier. That's your name."

He didn't reply with anything, only continued trying to keep his grip on the blaster tight. As it was shakily held before the Jedi's face, however, he felt the strength leaving him. Without wanting to, the pistol fell from his hand, and clattered away on the ground, disappearing in the mist.

The hand fell to his side, and as it did, he in turn fell to the ground. The last thing he saw before his world became darkness was the smiling image of the Twi'lek that he had been sent here to kill.

"Xavier..." He tasted the name he had been given on his dead lips.

It didn't matter who he was, he thought as he slipped away. It didn't matter what he thought. He was a soldier of the Galactic Empire, and all that mattered was that he fought and died for that cause.

It didn't matter who he was. It... Didn't... Matter...

His consciousness slipped away, and he smiled to himself in his last moment. When the Jedi looked away from the corpse, she looked away not from a nameless soldier, but from Xavier.

A stormtrooper.


	2. 2: Angel

She looked down at the dead. They were all around her, littered across the ground of this once beautiful planet. She had often come here during the Clone Wars, and even before then to meditate and be among her thoughts. It was peaceful here, or at least it had been.

When Order 66 was issued, when the Clone armies turned against those they had called comrades and leaders for so long, she had survived. She had fought her own troopers with tears in her eyes, and had then ran back here where she felt she belonged. If the end of the Jedi had come, and peace wasn't something that the Galaxy wished for, then so be it. She had fought so hard, and for so long. She was tired. If death was on its way for her, she would welcome it.

And death was coming.

She ran her hand through the mist in front of her face, it swirling around her fingers. She walked forwards, over the corpses of the Rebel soldiers who had bravely offered to guard her, and the stormtroopers who had fallen. She'd no idea if survivors from either side had survived. She had tried to warn the Rebels away, that what would come for her was beyond their power, beyond even her own, but they wouldn't listen. They said that they wanted to protect her to the very end, whether she would help them in return or not. It was the Order of the Jedi that had once stood, and the didn't want it to fall.

To them, they had said, she was an angel.

They were poor fools.

She had smiled, and agreed. For years she had been able to live upon this planet. She had told tales to the generals and soldiers of the Rebel Alliance, and spoken of the heroic deeds committed by the Jedi, and the once faithful Clones. She had told them that it was once the Clones who they would have fought with, and now they fought against. She spoke of the treacheries that had transpired, and the heroes who had died.

The heroes who had stood til the end.

She sighed, still smiling after all this time.

When she had turned away from Xavier, when he had died, she had been reminded of something for her past. She remembered Commander Yvet of her Legion, and the Clones that she had fought with. She remembered the battles that they had fought through together, and the love that had prospered between her and the Commander. She had known it was forbidden, she knew it had been wrong, but hadn't cared, and still didn't.

Seeing him forget who she was, seeing him turn his rifle towards her had torn up her heart and faith that there would ever be peace in the Galaxy. She almost let him kill her.

Watching him die by her blade had been the most difficult thing she had ever had to do.

After that day, she no longer called herself a Jedi. She was an outcast, and wanted to run away from everything that had happened.

So, she had ran here.

She watched her hand as she continued to hold it before her face. She looked at her perfect white skin, and the black fingernails that grew. She cradled one of the tails that grew from her head as it rested upon her chest, brought down over her shoulder. Her saber staff moved against the fabric of the robe she wore as it shifted in place, strapped to her back.

She thought back to when she had picked out the crystal for it, and the master that had overseen her. She had wanted to pick a color that made her feel calm and at ease. Every time she turned on her lightsaber and watched the perfectly white blades materialize, she felt her heart sing.

She had no regrets lingering in her past. She had nothing to fear.

She was ready.

She stopped walking, the dead that surrounded her all stormtroopers, and clasped both hands together in front of her, closing her eyes. As she did, she heard the rumble of a shuttle touching down with the earth of the planet, and mist before her parted in a bast of air.

She remembered her master. Alveran had been a kindly old man, though he never smiled.

Regardless, he was always full of cheer and love, and wanted nothing more than to spread those feelings throughout the Galaxy.

It was lonely now that Master Alveran was gone. He had been cut down years ago by her close friend, Sav.

Sav had been a Jedi Knight, a true warrior amongst the others of the order, but he had fallen. The taint and seduction of the dark side took root within his heart, and his mind had rotted. He let it in, and held onto it. Of course, she hadn't seen his fall to chaos until it had been too late.

When Alveran died, crying out into the night, and the newly begifted red lightsaber in Sav's hands had retracted into itself, she had called out his name, but he looked at her as though he didn't know her.

"I know not that name," he had said, his eyes yellowed and his voice scratchy. "I am Darth Ain."

He had turned and left, never to look back. That had been the last time she ever saw him.

She wondered if he was still alive.

Directly in front of her, an imperial lander touched down, the landing pads extending and without pause the boarding ramp lowered. Steam vented out from sections in the hull, and hydraulics whined as the ramp came down.

Lights flickered in the crew compartment, and a large figure made of darkness was outlined. He started walking down the ramp towards her, his cape flipping through the air as the steam vented around him, and a small wind blew through the world.

It was cold out that day. She liked the cold.

In the figure's hand was a lightsaber hilt, though for the moment it was inactive. She doubted she could best him in a duel of swords, and wondered if she could even manage to fell him if he were unarmed.

She hadn't been off world since the fall of the Republic, but she had heard the stories. The stories of the last hope of the Jedi turning, and bringing ruin to the order. Of he who cast away his tethers and bonds, and of he who broke his oaths.

He who slew Jedi.

Darth Vader.

"Jedi. You end here."

"I'm not Jedi," she replied immediately, not intimidated. She defied the truth of what she was, still trying to run away from herself. Vader said nothing nor moved in reply. He simply stood, saber in one hand and ready to be activated. No guard came with him from the gunship. The two of them were alone.

"Your order has fallen," the sith lord continued as though she had not spoken. "You will die."

She reached back her hand that had been holding one of her tails, and retrieved her saber staff from where it hung. She brought it forth, holding it in both hands, and activated it, the white blades humming in the wind.

"There will be no need for that," Vader said as he extended his hand, looking as though he was clutching something. As he did, she felt her throat tighten, and lost the ability to breath. She struggled to do so, trying to frantically suck in breaths, but she didn't know why. Wasn't her spirit broken?

Wasn't she ready to give in?

As though Vader could sense her lack of resistance, his grip on her weakened ever so slightly.

"I can feel it in you," Vader said, his voice deep and menacing. "The fear. The hopelessness. Give in, let those emotions control you, and you will live. You may exist as a disciple of the Dark side of the Force."

She felt the tension around her throat lessen even more so, though not by much. Just enough so that she could speak. As she formed words, however, she suspected that Vader already knew what she was going to say.

"N-no," she stammered. "Never."

She didn't want to go on, as either a Jedi or a Sith. There wasn't a place for her in the Galaxy. This life wasn't meant for her.

As she still struggled to breath, the smile never left her lips.

"My time has come," she said, the grip around her disappearing completely. It was obvious that Darth Vader's power over her was absolute. She wasn't a Jedi Master. She was just barely a Knight. Her strength was worthy, but not enough to stand against such a threat.

"It is here I will die."

Vader lowered his hand. He activated his lightsaber in the other, the red illuminating the mist and the ground that he stood on.

She deactivated her own, and cast it down to the ground. It vanished into the grey around her. She wouldn't fight.

Vader moved forwards in a flash, faster than her eyes could follow. She heard the sizzle and crack of a lightsaber against skin, and felt the prickling sensation of a new burn.

Soon, it became a searing, screaming heat as the blood cells around it evaporated and her skin cauterized. A dark slash ran through her stomach, the robes she wore around the cut catching fire.

She chuckled, her voice already weak. She recalled that the stormtrooper Xavier had also suffered a wound upon his stomach.

She fell to her knees.

The sound of Vader's saber being deactivated resounded, and he turned back for the gunship. He walked past her without another word, and moved up the ramp as it lifted, closing behind him.

She thought it was funny that he didn't even have any parting words for her. She assumed that he had searched her out for a long time, since the planet she was on was not well known and lingered on the very fringes of the Galaxy. He just left, her already forgotten to him. She assumed that he would return to hunting for others of her own kind.

She wondered again if Sav were still alive. She knew that he had called himself Darth Ain, but he would always be Sav to her. It didn't matter though she supposed, as she wouldn't be alive for much longer.

She fell face forwards, and inhaled the dirt beneath her. The smile was still on her features, though it was weaker now.

The earth smelled fresh and clean.

She turned over on her back, and looked up into the sky. It was clocked out by the mist, however. The sound of the imperial lander was already gone, disappeared into the distance. Her vision wavered. For a moment, she could see nothing, and then it returned, though darkness was creeping into the corners of her eyes.

She raised her hand above her face, and intertwined her fingers through the mist all around her as she lay amongst dead stormtroopers.

She closed her eyes, her final breath slipping away. Her hand lowered back down to rest on her chest.

Her smile never disappeared.

She died laying, and wondering to herself if Sav was still alive.


End file.
